The Deputies of the Verkhovna Rada did not recognize the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics as “terrorist organizations.”

Only 76 parliamentarians voted in favour of the amendment, out of 340 present. The amendment is part of the corresponding amendment to the bill on the Reintegration of Donbass.

The document would give the president the right to use armed forces in the East, to protect the sovereignty of the country, without having to declare war.

In the draft law, the territories of Donbass that are not controlled by Kiev are recognized as “occupied”, and Russia is called an aggressor country.

In the first reading, the document was approved in October 2017, it was adopted with amendments that excluded the item on the priority importance of Minsk agreements for the settlement of the conflict. Instead, it is proposed to rely on the UN Security Council resolution on the Donbass.

Currently, nationalists are holding a rally outside the parliament building, with a demand to pass this law. During the action, its participants burned the Russian flag.

Inessa Sinchougova is an Editor and Journalist at Fort Russ News, as well as a research fellow and translator of the Belgrade based think-tank, the Center for Syncretic Studies. She was educated at Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand), in the field of Political Science and was previously employed in Marketing and Communications Strategy for a Multi-National Corporation. She runs a popular YouTube channel for translations of key Russian Foreign Policy figures and appears regularly on other alternative media channels. If you like her work, you can support her Patreon here.